[13] William Henry Price (1854- after 1911)

Known as ‘Harry’, William Henry accompanied his mother to England and was recorded in the 1861 census, aged 6, as a visitor to the Indies School that Julia attended at that time. At the 1871 census he was not at his parent’s house in Greenwich and cannot be located elsewhere in England.

He married Annie Cooke on 1st September 1878, at Holy Trinity Church, Greenwich, and they had a son, Frederick Scott Price, who was born in the middle of 1880 at 106 Old Woolwich Road, Greenwich and named after William’s younger brother. His grandmother, Ann Cook, who was illiterate and made her mark, ‘X’, on the registration form, was the informant of the birth. The infant died shortly afterwards in 1880. Annie’s father, as recorded at her wedding, was Samuel George Cook, a steward.

The Cook Ancestory

This family lived south of the Thames in the Southwark and Bermondsey areas of London for a number of generations.

Samuel George Cook was baptised on 28th June 1837 at St Peter’s Church, Walworth, Southwark. He was the son of Samuel and Ann Cook who lived in the district of St Mary Magdalen, Bermondsey. Samuel was a tanner by trade and he and his family appear in the censuses of 1841, 1851 and 1861. These show that he had eight children – Robert (ca 1826), Amelia (ca 1831), Samuel (1837), James (1838), Sophia (1840), William Alfred (1844), Ann Elizabeth (1847) and John (1850). All of the family were born in Bermondsey, Samuel senior in 1797 and his wife, Ann nee Bagshaw, in about 1806. They had been married at Christ Church, Spitalfields, Stepney on 20th March 1826.

Samuel was the son of John Cook and Susannah Dicey and was baptised at St Olave’s Church, Southwark on 23rd July 1797, having been born on the 3rd July. His parents had married in the same church on 26th February 1792. John himself was baptised in St Olave’s on 3rd January 1773, the son of John and Elizabeth Cook. He had been born on 16th December 1772 and signed as a witness at his son’s marriage in 1826.

Samuel George Cook’s marriage has not been found nor the birth registration of Annie Cook. A possible explanation for this is that Annie may have been the child of an earlier marriage of her mother, who was then widowed and subsequently married Samuel George Cook.

Another son, James Leslie Price was born on 23rd July 1887. Henry and Annie were living at 1 Westcombe Park Road, Greenwich at the 1901 census and his occupation then was a bank accountant. Their son, James, was not at home, so was probably away at a boarding school or may even have already joined the Merchant Navy. Henry William Price was later a manager at Smith’s Bank in Argyll Street, London.

By 1911 William, 56, and Annie, 51, were living alone at 91 Coleraine Road, Blackheath, a sizable property with 8 main rooms. He was by then a Bank Manager and the census details show that the couple had had four children in total, of whom only one was still alive. This means that apart from the short-lived Frederick Scott, they had two further children, as yet unidentified, who did not reach adulthood.

The dates of the deaths of William Henry and Annie Price have not been found so far.

James Leslie Price in the Merchant Navy

James Leslie Price, who played for Blackheath Rugby Club as an amateur, was due to move to the USA to take up employment with the Ford Motor Company. Up until that time he had been a ship’s engineer in the Merchant Navy. He died suddenly, in 1919, before he could make the journey. He had raised three children by this time – Dorrien Gertrude (b. 1915), Joan Marjorie (b. 1917) and Peter James Leslie (b. 1919). His widow, Gertrude Mary (nee Smedley), was remarried to a widower, John Robert William Davies, by whom she had two more children. One of these was Howard Davies, whose web-based request for information on William Samuel Price was instrumental in bringing together various members of different branches of the Price family.

Gertrude Mary’s father, Samuel Smedley, worked for Gilbert and Sullivan in their operatic productions as a lighting engineer.

The Descendants of William Henry and Annie Price

James Leslie Price’s son, Peter Leslie Price, joined the Royal Marines and during World War II was reported missing in action in Burma in 1942. His daughter, Joan Marjorie Price never married and died in 2003. His third child, Dorrien Gertrude Price married Thomas Timothy Evans and they had two children, Howard Christopher Evans and Linda Mary Evans. Dorrien Evans died in 1999 and Thomas Evans in 1998.

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